Former pupils of a Surbiton school demolished more than 50 years ago swapped memories and stories about the three eccentric spinster sisters who ran it, at a reunion in Walton two weeks ago.

Park Lodge School occupied a large Victorian villa in Claremont Road between 1881 until it closed in 1958 when Grace, Lois and Connie Fordham moved away.

More than 20 people attended the reunion, attended by the sisters’ great-nephew Graham Fordham, and shared photographs of the grounds and pupils, and photocopies of school plays held at Surbiton Assembly Rooms.

Organiser Wendy Hanafin (nee Chalk) said: “Rumour had it that there was a secret underground passage in the school, which led to the river. One ex-pupil remembers when her class left the school, they all threw their brown berets in the Thames.

“Sadly the school was pulled down when the three sisters retired to another area, and new houses built on the site. We only have our photographs to remind us of what a special place it was to us all.”